Inkjet-printed point-of-care immunoassay on a nanoscale polymer brush enables subpicomolar detection of analytes in blood [Engineering]

The ELISA is the mainstay for sensitive and quantitative detection of protein analytes. Despite its utility, ELISA is time-consuming, resource-intensive, and infrastructure-dependent, limiting its availability in resource-limited regions. Here, we describe a self-contained immunoassay platform (the “D4 assay”) that converts the sandwich immunoassay into a point-of-care test (POCT). The D4 assay is fabricated by inkjet printing assay reagents as microarrays on nanoscale polymer brushes on glass chips, so that all reagents are “on-chip,” and these chips show durable storage stability without cold storage. The D4 assay can interrogate multiple analytes from a drop of blood, is compatible with a smartphone detector, and displays analytical figures of merit that are comparable to standard laboratory-based ELISA in whole blood. These attributes of the D4 POCT have the potential to democratize access to high-performance immunoassays in resource-limited settings without sacrificing their performance.